November 16, 2018

While there might be downside to the person challenging Trump, a primary opponent isn’t likely to take Trump on if he’s concerned about playing it safe and husbanding his or her popularity. The primary challenger, if you will, acts like the horse who jumps out to the lead, wears down the favorite and allows his stablemate to come from behind for the victory. And sometimes, the lead horse might actually win. Who’d do this? Maybe someone who already has a job (e.g., Mitt Romney, the Utah senator-elect), or doesn’t need one (e.g., a retired government official), or just thinks it’s the right thing to do (outgoing Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake?). ...

[A] primary run doesn’t preclude a third-party run by a different candidate, most likely a moderate candidate in the event Trump wins the GOP nomination. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, visiting in New Hampshire, explained the ideal circumstances for such a run. My colleague David Weigel writes, “Kasich was speculating on what it would take to break the two-party system wide open. He imagined a 2020 matchup between Trump and a left-wing Democrat that would create ‘a vast ocean between the parties.’ ” The decision to mount a third-party run could wait until after both parties pick their nominee; but if Trump falters in the primary, nothing would stop Kasich (or anyone else) from entering the race. (For now, Kasich occupies an enviable position. A non-candidate with high name ID can continue to criticize Trump and urge his fellow Republicans to hold Trump accountable for his rhetoric and actions.)

I just love the phrase "husbanding his or her popularity."

Anyway... someone other than Kasich is supposed to go in there and wear himself out weakening Trump, and Kasich has identified himself as the one to come in after someone else does the groundwork. Kasich is the moderate in waiting — quite openly and with strong support from The Washington Post.

John Kasich would lose to any Democrat I can imagine running in 2020.In 2016 Republican voters chose Trumpas their candidate, and put him in the white house over Kasich's strenuously voiced objections. One of the reasons I thought that Trump was sure to lose in 2016 is that Ohio was a must-win for Trump, and Kasich refused to cooperate with the Trump campaign -- Kasich would have had Trump's people in Ohio, the few that he had, arrested, if he could've gotten away with it. Trump stomped Hillary in Ohio by 8 points.

For now, Kasich occupies an enviable position. A non-candidate with high name ID can continue to criticize Trump and urge his fellow Republicans to hold Trump accountable for his rhetoric and actions.

This is positively delusional.

The Never-Trumper Right are legends in their own minds. The deal was that Trump, the neophyte, would come into office & self-destruct. It would then become obvious to the Republican faithful that they had been sorely deceived & they would turn to their now vindicated Never-Trumper betters to pull them through.

Didn't happen. Trump has exceeded the expectations of a large fraction of those who voted for him, many of whom voted for him out of loathing for Hillary Clinton & all the Clinton Machine represented.

In the extremely unlikely event that Jennifer Rubin's hopes were realized, in less than a week after Kasich got the nomination the Washington Post would forget their open and strong for him and he would become "Hitler," like all other not yet dead Republican nominees.

John Kasich was, by far, my least favorite of the GOP primary contenders. Trump was not far up the board. In fact, I was Never Trump for a few minutes. I don't even remember how I voted in the primary in Mississippi but it would have been for Cruz if he was still going at that time. Now that I think about it, I was probably in Houston getting chemo and radiation during the primary and that's probably why I don't remember i.e. I didn't vote. Regardless, I did not pull the lever for Trump in the primary on general elections. Now having said that, I would have voted for Trump in the general if it was going to be in anyway competitive with Hillary in MS. I voted Libertarian just to try to give that party some credence and I thought maybe several others would do the same but I don't think there was much of that effect.

Jennifer Rubin and Bill Kristol have fallen more in professional esteem than any "conservatives" with TDS.

Interestingly, the Post ombudsman had her number a long time ago. Se is a bad writer who is often wrong, never in doubt. He talks about her licking Romney's rear end in 2012, only to turn on hi with a savage fury, with no guiding principles.

@Althouse, you do realize, I hope, that Jennifer Rubin and David Brooks are merely a progressive's dreams as to what a "good" conservative would be like. If they believed that there really was any such thing as a good conservative, that is.

But no conservative regards either of them as conservative.

As to Kasich, at the time he finally suspended his 2016 campaign, he was behind Trump in convention delegates by 996 to 153, and he had to win something on the order of 500% of the remaining delegates to become the nominee.

Kasich is the moderate in waiting — quite openly and with strong support from The Washington Post.

Only as long as, and until, he fucks over the Republican's chances. As soon as he threatens the Democrats he's Hitler who wants to put chains on Black people, put gays in camps and force women to get pregnant and give birth.

Big Mike said...@Althouse, you do realize, I hope, that Jennifer Rubin and David Brooks are merely a progressive's dreams as to what a "good" conservative would be like. If they believed that there really was any such thing as a good conservative, that is.

'House broken' is a better term. You can have them on the Sunday shows and they won't pee on the carpet.

Not that it matters, living as I do in California---but the chances of that small hardy band of Republican survivors (run down and hunted into our burrows by the California Dims) voting for Kasich come 2020 are lower than whale poop on the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

Kasich is a McCain but without the war record that enabled The Maverick to get away with his petty grandstanding for 30 years. Flake is worse than either. It will be interesting to see how far Romney will go in filling the void.

No one has spotted the lie, this whole wet dream is based on. President Trump is not a far right ideologue.(he's not even a Republican) After two years in office, he is more centrist than Kaisich. President Trump was willing to grant amnesty, to get the board wall built, and secure the boarder. He will deal on almost anything. The Dems fucked up an opportunity just as bad as the Republicans, to make a lot of progress.

If the Jen Rubin types ever get their hands on control of the party again, and one of their squish candidates becomes the nominee, I will vote third party for the rest of my life, and I won’t care if the left take over because of it.

Completely laughable. Kasich has no support. He's living out his own grandiosity fed by a Trump hating media. This whole idea is a joke. Its denial of the changes we are going through, a desire to return to "normalcy" that most people reject, on both sides. Normalcy was killing us.

So, she wants to replay 2016 with someone else in the Cruz role, except in 2020 it'll work against a sitting President when it failed in 2016 against a mere outsider candidate?

Seems like in 2016 half the GOP candidates were trying to avoid taking on Trump while hoping that someone else would cull the field and soften him up for them. It didn't work and after mid-March 2016 it didn't even make sense.

In its face, that's not a strategy, it's hardly even a thought.

Or maybe her REAL strategy is to soften up Trump to make him easier for the Democrat to take him out in the general. Deceitful, but if enough GOPs go for it, THAT makes sense. As Rubin may not be stupid, and looking at her body of work over the last few years, I will assume for now that is what she is after.

I said in 2016, these people were NeverCruz long before they became NeverTrump. You could tell, because when it came down to Trump, Cruz, and Kasich. Instead of backing Cruz, who had at least won a couple of primaries and had delegates; they backed last place, should have gotten out before Rubio and Bush, John Kasich, who had no clear path to victory even if he had won all the remaining primaries.

But I'm fine with the donor class wasting their money on Kasich. It redistributes money from DC, NY, California to Ohio. We Texans appreciate all the money given to Beto to spend in Texas on a losing cause.

What's Kasich's constituency? Does he have one? Jeff Flake -- same question.

Former governor of a swing state seems like it should be a good credential, but he'd be a much stronger candidate if there were a group of people who wanted Kasich and only Kasich to be the next president. If you don't have that, I think Bob Dole or Mitt Romney probably represents your realistic upside. Kasich probably can't even manage that -- there are going to be some people pissed off that he stayed in the race too long and killed Cruz's chances.

Trump and Obama had many faults, but from day one they had followers who would accept no substitutes.

This is very dumb analysis. Distanced from reality. No one could knock trump off on the R nomination, and if they did, the nomination would be worth nothing. And, a third party similarly would have no chance becuase he D's have a 40-45% floor. Trump on his worst day would have a 30% floor. No path for third party in 2020. And, the best path for any "independent" candidate is to "steal" the R nomination in 2024, like Trump stole it in 2016.